[Intro: a gavel taps a folding table, a crowd goes silent] [Hook: male lead, the whole crowd shouts the bid] Two cents! (Two cents!) For the house and the land You wanna raise it? Raise it with your other hand 'Cause your right one's in mine, and my grip got a temper Two cents! (Two cents!) Going once. Remember [Verse 1: plain-spoken and heavy] Odom rolled his tractor on the creek bank in the rain Buried him in March. By May the bank had learned to spell her name Staple gun on her screen door: "Public Sale. The yard. Ten sharp" Every acre, every heifer, and the porch swing and the barn Out-of-town men in clean boots come to buy it by the pound Bank man in pressed khakis with a gavel and a frown Two hundred of us stood between the bidders and the gavel, boot to boot Like a hedgerow grew up overnight, and it's got two hundred roots [Hook] Two cents! (Two cents!) For the house and the land You wanna raise it? Raise it with your other hand 'Cause your right one's in mine, and my grip got a temper Two cents! (Two cents!) Going once. Remember [Verse 2] [Flow switch: double-time, crowd shouts the bids] Tractor? (Penny!) Baler? (Penny!) Barn? (A nickel!) Take it or leave it Forty head of Angus for a quarter, and the gavel man can't believe it Pickup? (Three cents!) Porch swing? (Penny!) Every lot goes to a neighbor Any hand goes up from out of town, two of us lean in, "Hey there, neighbor" Bank man sweatin' through his collar, beggin', "Do I hear a dollar?" Sir, you hear two hundred people breathin'. That's as loud as we gon' holler [Beat Switch: drums cut, wind, one bass note] Big man from the city lifted up his card. "Ten thousand. For the land" Two hundred heads turned all at once, like wheat when the weather changes hands Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. The Pruitt twins, six-five, walked over slow Stood on either side of him and smiled. Just smiled. And let him know He looked at us. He looked at his truck. He looked at the long road home Then he lowered that card like a flag at a funeral and said, "Withdrawn" [Verse 3: the stomp slams back, triumphant] Gavel came down on the house for two cents, and the bank man near about cried Dollar and seven cents for the whole damn farm, every lot paid and signed Deed went down the line, hand to hand, farmer to farmer, to the porch Miss Odom folded it twice and tucked it in her apron like a letter from the Lord Bank man folded up his table, said, "You can't do this." Sir, we did Same as our granddaddies did it. Same as we gon' teach the kids [Final Hook: whole crowd] Two cents! (Two cents!) For the house and the land Next time you wanna raise it, raise it with your other hand 'Cause your right one's in mine, and my grip got a temper Two cents! (Two cents!) Sold. Remember [Outro: one gavel hit, the stomp stops dead] [End]
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